New article accepted in the Management International Review

09.03.2020

The article "Chain of Blame: A Multi-Country Study of Consumer Reactions Towards Supplier Hypocrisy in Global Supply Chains" by Nils Christian Hoffmann, Prof. Juelin Yin and Prof. Stefan Hoffmann has been accepted at the Management International Review!

Here's the abstract of the article:

Recent research identified firms’ hypocritical behavior as a major threat to their reputation among consumers. This paper expands the dyadic relationship to a triadic relationship, integrating the hypocritical behavior of suppliers in global supply chains. Introducing a chain of blame, this paper suggests that the hypocritical behavior of the supplier backfires on the firm, leading to loss of reputation and increased boycotting tendencies. We test our proposed framework across one main study and two follow-up studies with consumers from two industrialized and two BRICS countries (Germany, US, South-Africa and China) and a total of 1.177 respondents. Results show that consumers from various countries consistently hold firms responsible for their suppliers’ hypocritical behavior, consequently lower their reputation ratings, and intend to engage in boycotting the firm. The analysis further identifies the origin of the supplier and consumer ethnocentrism as nationally-variant promoting factors of consumers’ boycott intention and shows that the influence of those factors is contingent on consumers’ expectations towards foreign vs domestic firms. Implications for managers and marketing-managers are given.

 

(Ein Post von der Professur für Marketing)